The Best TV Title Sequences Of 2022, Ranked

For a while, it seemed like title sequences were a dying art form. Throughout the 2010s, shows seemed to fall largely into two opening credits categories: slow, moving close-ups of pieces of a thing that led to a final zoom out (see: "Game of Thrones," "Westworld," "The Crown"), or a quick, unadorned shot of a title card that makes viewers feel nothing at all. TV seemed to relish telling us as little as possible about the series at hand before it's actually begun, forgoing a decades-old tradition in mood setting to instead cut straight to the action.

Luckily, though, the title sequence seems to be making a comeback. In 2022, title sequences got creative in ways that blended the familiar (animated title sequences, throwback musical numbers) with the trendy (brief opening titles that change with every episode). The result is a great year for TV fans — and anyone who loves to get a good jingle stuck in their head.

Below, we run through the best new title sequences of the year. Emphasis on the word "new": for the sake of rewarding the best of 2022 specifically, this list is exclusively for either first-season shows, or returning shows that switched up their credits (either opening or closing) in their latest episodes. That means that as much as I bow down to the intros for "Tuca & Bertie," "P-Valley," "Girls5eva," "What We Do in the Shadows," and "Only Murders in the Building," this list isn't for them. It is, however, for all the shows whose new intros or end credits surprised, delighted, intrigued, or amazed us in 2022.

In general, Disney+ shows don't seem to be too concerned about opening titles, but they're go big or go home when it comes to end credits. Jonathan Kasdan's super-entertaining "Willow" sequel series has some of the best of the bunch to date. The episodes typically end with a striking, meaningful, or sometimes even funny shot that suddenly turns into an illustration that gives the impression of watercolor on parchment. This smash cut is more often than not accompanied by a totally unexpected music choice, like Sir Jude's cover of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" or Beginners & Night Panda's "Guess Who's Back." The end titles, which go on to include watercolor-like portraits of the cast, are polarizing, but they're perfectly fitting for a show that's at once a visually sumptuous fantasy and an irreverent, hip comedy.

Does anything indicate that s*** is about to get real quite like a theme song that would sound perfect blasting from the mall speakers of a Hot Topic? "Attack on Titan," the popular anime that follows a group of people trying to save the world from monstrous Titans, underscored the seriousness of its final season this year with the help of the Japanese metal band SiM. Their song "The Rumbling" lays the groundwork for a no-holds-barred intro that's appropriately apocalyptic. "Rumbling! Rumbling! It's coming, rumbling! Rumbling!" the group sings over footage of flayed monsters wreaking carnage. "Rumbling" is the kind of song that sounds overwhelming the first time you hear it, but once you get used to it, you'll want it on repeat. Its intensity is also an extremely appropriate fit for the show as it enters its action-packed endgame.

The creative and casually spectacular animated opening for Christopher Miller and Phil Lord's murder mystery "The Afterparty" earned a spot on my "never click skip intro" list the first time I saw them. The 48-second intro is in many ways nothing like the kooky, multi-POV show it represents, yet it captures elements of each perspective perfectly with its color block sequence. The angular scene is always moving, with blood that transforms into a crime scene outline, then a bench on which a pair of lovers meet, then freeway stripes, and piano keys. These multi-purpose blocks cleverly morph throughout the credits, dropping subtle hints about what's to come in the series and looking cool as hell all the while. Daniel Pemberton's inquisitive score accompanies every visual twist and turn.

Robert and Michelle King shows know how to make an entrance. For years, "The Good Fight" opened its story of legal and political surreality with shots of exploding objects accompanied by David Buckley's gorgeous score. This year, that show bowed out for good, but the pair upped the ante with a new intro for their other series, the wonderfully trippy modern horror story "Evil." Buckley's score once again accompanies visually striking shots of objects, only this time, his string instruments evoke a sense of both beauty and dread. The objects we see on screen aren't much more comforting, but they are indelible: hands that drip black, bloody pickaxes flung into walls, rosaries swallowed whole by white liquid. It's a fitting theme song for one of television's most unique and ambitious shows.

"It was cool, nothing fire, nothing broke," Anna Waronker promises at the beginning of the "Yellowjackets" theme song, "No Return." It's a fantastic, '90s-flavored grunge track that would probably blow up the alt rock charts if released as a single. Musician Waronker made the track with Craig Wedren, and the pair's real-life rock creds (the former is in the band That Dog while the latter sung for Shudder To Think) helped influence a sound that Wedren told Pitchfork "needed that punishing beat underneath." It's fitting for a show about teen girl cannibals, and the theme song's glitchy VHS-style visuals are just as perfect. "No return, no return, no reason," Waronker wails ominously as the punchy intro comes to a close.

I'll just say it: more opening credits need to make their entire casts dance. James Gunn's "Peacemaker" knows exactly what the DC universe — and TV as a whole — was missing, and it turns out it was a wacky intro that features heroes and villains alike getting down to Wig Wam's "Do You Want To Taste It?" Lest we worry that this show would follow in the footsteps of DC's too-serious stories of the past, the theme song manages to make us laugh early and often each time it comes up. Choreographer Charissa-Lee Barton told /Film that Gunn had a specific vision for the sequence, saying: "he wrote with very clear direction, they all do this weird dance with a straight face, no emotion." Simple, genius, hilarious.

The first season of "Severance" won the Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design this year, and it's an award that was a no-brainer. Oliver Latta's introduction, scored by Theodore Shapiro, is designed to be at once terrifying and mundane, intriguing and bizarre. The first time I watched it, I recoiled, disturbed by the not-quite-human way the homonculus-like versions of Mark's (Adam Scott) innie and outie tripped their way through the day. But with each passing episode of the pristinely executed speculative fiction series, the mysterious and primally frightening imagery in the opening credits — like one Mark carrying a bushel of floating Marks like balloons, or black ooze leaking from trash cans and people — felt more and more thrilling and apt.